Bewilderness

by Karen Tucker

  It wasn’t until I told the story about Luce flying off to rehab in Florida that a girl approached me after the meeting and asked if we could talk for a second. This was at the 7 p.m. New in the rooms, she couldn’t have been much older than sixteen, seventeen tops, with a fierce junkyard-dog way about her that let you know she’d gone through something pretty horrific. She kept shifting her weight from one leg to the other like she was nervous—and right away I knew she was going to ask me to be her sponsor. I admit I was flattered. I’d never been asked that before.

  “First things first,” I said. “You should know I don’t have much clean time.”

  Something in the girl’s face jumped around a little. “Yeah, same.”

  She had on a backward Korn hat with a few dark pieces sticking out from under. Brown eyes. Bunched-up shoulders. The flush of pimples on her cheeks combined with her bitten-down fingernails made her look even younger than I’d first thought. A child, when you got down to it.

  She motioned me over to the percolator. While she took her time refilling a giant red thermos, I launched into all the newcomer advice I could think of. Stuff like ninety meetings in ninety days, letting go, keeping busy, taking things one day at time or even minute by minute. How willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness were the keys to recovery. And sure, it was nothing more than a bunch of twelve-step stuff all strung together, but it felt good to say it. Greenie always insisted that being of service was a huge part of staying sober. What if this was my Higher Power telling me it was time to level up in the program?

  “Look,” I said as the girl stirred in powdered creamer. “If you want me to be your sponsor, I’d be honored.”

  She glanced up from her coffee. Once again her face got twitchy. “Yeah, that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

  I felt myself redden. “Okay. What then.”

  “You ever hear of the Florida Shuffle?” she said.

  The way Luce would pick all the marshmallows out of our Count Chocula and then complain we got cheated by the cereal fat cats

  The elaborate ice cream sundaes she made for us every night once we quit using

  Her strawberry-kiwi shampoo and how it made my nose tingle

  The sound of her lungs pumping air in and out

  The girl said she didn’t want to scare me, but she figured I should probably know what was happening down in Palm Beach County. “There’s some real fucked-up shit going on where your friend’s at.”

  As politely as I could, I explained that she was either confused or mistaken. Luce was in one of the best rehabs in the country. She was coming home in nine days, clean and sober and better than ever. She was learning how to swim! Still the girl kept on talking. You could tell she was pretty worked up about whatever she was trying to tell me, but the truth was she wasn’t making any sense.

  Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I tried to listen, but soon I couldn’t take it a second longer. I excused myself and went upstairs to the church restroom. Peed, washed my hands, splashed water on my face. As a last-minute thought, just to confirm how depressingly mixed-up that poor Korn kid was, I did a search on my phone for this Florida Shuffle business.

  Next thing I knew I was dry-heaving into the sink.

  Laughing at r/opioids sub threads together over breakfast

  Upvoting all the best war stories, downvoting trolls and idiots

  Congratulating the people celebrating their cake day

  Posting a. for a moment of silence whenever an OD was announced

  The hustle works like this: In exchange for a hefty payout, a body broker like Ms. Florida finds someone struggling with addiction who has health-care coverage, usually under their parents’ policy. She offers them a free bed in a treatment center and promises all sorts of perks and amenities. Who wouldn’t want to get clean in a fancy setup next to the beach? But the place turns out to be little more than a flophouse. No perks, not even treatment, just wake up and piss in a cup every morning. Instead of a chef, you get candy bars and frozen burritos. Maybe a group session once a day if you’re lucky. Many of your fellow patients will still be using. Your bedroom is locked from the outside every night. Meanwhile the flophouse owner charges your insurance these epic amounts for your so-called treatment—we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars—and when your claim runs out they stick you in a cheap motel for a couple weeks, give you free dope every day so you stay there, and then file a new claim with your insurer saying you relapsed. The moment it’s approved, the cycle starts all over. The only way out for most patients is a fatal overdose—and once your tolerance is back down to amateur levels, that part’s a cinch to pull off.

  My head pounding with blood, I sat on the floor of the bathroom trying to buy a plane ticket to Palm Beach International, but the last-minute prices might as well have been a million dollars. I wasn’t eligible to get my driver’s license back for another week and a half, so I couldn’t rent a car. I thought about asking Greenie for help, but I’d been dodging her so long I felt too ashamed to call her and instead I phoned my mom and left a long message saying I was in trouble and I needed her advice and could she please please call me as soon as possible? I never heard back.

  Which is why I finally texted Nogales. He didn’t respond right away and that wasn’t like him. I texted him a second time. I’m at the church, I said. It’s important! Can you meet me? It took a few minutes, but at last he got back to me with a stupid thumbs-up emoji.

  It’s urgent, I wrote back. Hurry.

  All that got was a like.

  I was waiting on the steps out front when his cruiser rolled into the parking lot, all nice and casual like he was hitting a drive-thru. I hurried down to meet him. “What took so long?”

  “I was grabbing a slice with a friend,” he said, climbing out of the car. “You okay? What happened?”

  As fast as I could, I told him everything I knew about the whole rehab-shuffle situation. Pulled up some articles on my phone. “She’s fine, right? All this is nothing but clickbait.”

  He didn’t say anything, just scrolled through, reading in silence. At last he lifted his head. His face was the same greenish color as when he told me and Luce about Wilky. “I don’t guess you feel like taking a drive, do you?”

  Soon the two of us were speeding to Florida.

  Nogales used his sirens the whole way.

  86thepervontable3

  •

  THERE’S SO MUCH MORE I COULD TELL YOU. YOU never heard the full story about Luce breaking her elbow that one winter and how impossible it was to get anyone to prescribe her the pain meds she needed. Or about me trading our TV for a half dozen blues during a moment of desperation, and then pretending we’d been burglarized when Luce came home and saw it was missing. One of the many times I lied to her, I’m ashamed to say. Us stealing another TV to replace it is a whole other story—nursing home, craft hour, rear exit—and so is us making amends to the facility and its residents once we got clean and started working the steps. You also never got to hear Luce’s favorite story. Or maybe favorite isn’t the right word exactly, but it’s the one I heard her tell more than any other and I’d bet any amount of money it’s the one she’d share if she were sitting here with us.

  I wish she were sitting here with us.

  Anyway. I can’t tell her story for her. I wouldn’t want to. Once upon a time there was magic, there was music, and then: nothing. Even now, years later, there are days when the world is little more than an empty scraped-out bag. And the withdrawals, let me tell you, are a real motherfucker.

  Facts then? Okay, something easy.

  College. Not right away, but after another year or so of serving I decided I should probably look into another option. Something that required a little less brainpower. A few more months passed until one night, after getting written up for being rude to a grabby regular (hi Ed, remember me?), I was so angry I went online, filled out the FAFSA, and got student loan approval. Turned out I also qualified for a Pell Grant and the follow
ing month I sent off two applications. Got flat rejected by one school and wait-listed by the other, which eventually turned into an acceptance. I enrolled.

  Not that this made things easier. Even with the loans I still had to wait tables while taking full-time hours. A small mental health incident occurred during my second semester (February is always a hard month to get through) and I transferred to a different school the following year. Dropped out of the second school not long after and did another lengthy stretch of food service until at last I eased myself back into the system with what they call distance learning, a.k.a. online education. The first class went better than expected. I signed up for another. And another. Eventually my transcript wasn’t quite so embarrassing and I managed to squeak into a big state university in Florida. Well, you probably don’t have to have a degree in psychology to understand why I applied there.

  I take classes like everyone, I get grades, I have professors who respond to my emails. Unless something unexpected happens I’ll get my degree next May. Oh and here’s something funny: instead of math, I’m studying English. Partly because after all these years in the rooms I’ve come to love stories. Partly because nothing adds up anymore.

  Something else funny. With maybe one exception, everyone here at school thinks I’m a normie. Of the many skills I learned from the old hustle, the ability to figure out what someone wants has been the most valuable. Once you understand that, it’s not so hard to let them have it. To them I’m just some harmless older woman trying to get herself a little education. I think a few of them feel sorry for me. Hey, if it makes them happy, I don’t mind, not really. For the most part I’m glad no one here knows about my former life and all that happened—though it does make me feel even more alone.

  Which is a big reason why I still go to meetings. Online ones, mostly. If you’re interested, there’s a good site called In The Rooms. But full disclosure: Although I haven’t used pills or h for eight years and counting, I’m not completely sober. It probably doesn’t qualify as official medication-assisted treatment, but having a beer or two every night helps keep me steady. At least it has so far. I admit I did steal a half sheet of Oxy 5s from my mom after her car accident two summers ago (DUI, broken ribs, broken pelvis), but they’re still under my bathroom sink, next to the toilet bowl cleaner. Haven’t even broken the foil. I can’t say why for sure, but maybe the idea of getting into it without Luce here to join me is too depressing.

  Luce.

  I’ll come out and say it.

  She died in that Delray rehab the morning before Nogales and I got there. Did a shot packed with fent while sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Just like that, her lungs clicked off and she stopped breathing. Instant release. I’m told a fellow resident found her collapsed on the tile after breakfast. You’d think a treatment center would be the last place where people could get loaded. Not in Florida. Or California, as it turns out. Arizona, Texas, and others.

  She was twenty-two years old.

  Since I wasn’t on any of Luce’s paperwork—she’d listed her stepdad as her emergency contact—no one called me. If Nogales hadn’t driven me down there, who knows when I would have found out what happened. Months later, when I was reading everything I could about the whole rehab hustle, I came across several interviews with parents who said they were never notified that their child had died.

  A lot of what followed is blurry, and most of what I recall is little more than ghostly flashes: The odor of pizza drifting in from the back room at the funeral parlor, the shock of the open casket, the old-lady dress Luce’s mom and stepdad decided to bury her in. The online obituary that called her Lucille. The fill-in-the blanks eulogy from a minister whose phone kept buzzing in his pants all through the service. “She’s in a better place now,” I remember him saying. “God needed another angel.” It was like he copied his speech off wikiHow. One of my biggest regrets in this life is I didn’t stand up when he asked if anyone wanted to add something further. Not even one small story about what an amazing human she was and how much she meant to me, and how life will never, ever, be the same without her. Luce, I’m sorry.

  The night before the funeral, I called my mom to tell her what happened. It had been almost three years since we’d spoken, so it wasn’t like I thought she’d answer. But sometimes even leaving a message helps a little. I’ve left countless messages over the years. So you can imagine my surprise when she not only picked up, she sounded happy I’d phoned her.

  “Irene, that you? I’ve been calling and calling but you never answer.”

  “Mom! Oh my god.”

  I knew she hadn’t tried to call me, but I was so glad to hear her voice I didn’t care if she was lying. I told her as much about Luce as I could handle.

  “Oh my goodness, baby,” she said. “That’s heartbreaking. I wish I was there with you.”

  “Me too.”

  A long pause followed. A TV was playing in the background. Applause, cheering. A game show most likely. Seconds later, the TV clicked off.

  “Now listen,” she said, coughing a little. “I need to ask you something important.”

  When I’d told my mom about Luce’s drug use, I was hoping she wouldn’t want to know if I’d gotten mixed up in all that business. She had a lot of shame about her own drinking and if she found out I’d inherited the same problems with addiction, it would hurt her. This much I knew. Then again maybe it was time for both of us to face the hard questions.

  “Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

  “There any way you could loan me a hundred bucks?”

  But if there’s someone good in this world, it’s Nogales. Not only did he drive me to Florida and back again the next day when I was too wrecked to do anything but weep into the passenger-side door, in the eternal Day 3 that followed he made sure I was putting food and water in my body on a regular basis. Kept me from sleeping for eighteen-hour stretches. Gave me a ride to the 8 a.m. every morning to make sure I stayed with the program, and at my request, he held on to my phone for the first couple of weeks to make sure I didn’t text anyone I shouldn’t. Which of course made me think of Luce.

  When I got my thirty-day key tag it was Nogales who sat beside me in the circle, clapping the loudest. It was Nogales who took me out for Bojangles’ when I hit the sixty-day mark. At ninety he brought over a chocolate Bundt cake from the Food Lion bakery. We ate it with our fingers as we drove to the meeting. On our way back, I invited him over for a home-cooked dinner that Saturday. To thank him, I said. He turned me down at first, saying he didn’t need any thanking, but at last I got him to agree to come over the following Monday.

  “Won’t be as good as an eight-piece box,” I said, “but I promise you won’t leave hungry.”

  He said he was looking forward to it.

  I was too. I’d gotten my driver’s license back by that point, which allowed me to get a new job waiting tables at this horrible little “American” place that had opened up on the edge of town, not far from the highway. Baby-back ribs, chicken tenders, fried-shrimp platters. Having no seniority meant being scheduled a double on Sundays, but I spent all of Monday tidying up Luce’s and my place, grocery shopping, prepping. The eggplant parmesan I made turned out pretty great. The secret is dipping your salted eggplant slices in egg batter and fresh bread crumbs and then frying them like cutlets until they turn brown and crispy. One thing about getting clean is you have a lot more time for your other interests. I never cooked for Nogales back when we were together, and after he finished, he patted his belly and smiled at me from across the table.

  “Wow,” he said. “Where’d that come from?”

  I told him there was a lot about me he didn’t know.

  When he asked if seconds were a possibility, I said he could have as much he wanted. As I watched him dig in, the question came out before I’d really thought it over.

  No. That’s not true.

  I’d been considering it for several weeks, months even.

  “What do you
think about us trying again?” I said.

  Nogales didn’t answer right away, just kept chewing, eyes lowered. At last he swallowed. Wiped his mouth with his napkin. Folded the cloth into a tidy square. By the time he looked up I already knew what was coming.

  “Thing is, I’m seeing someone,” he said.

  He went on to explain that he hadn’t meant to hide it. He’d just never found a good time to bring it up. When I asked if I knew her, he said he didn’t think so. They met at his Al-Anon meeting. She lived out in Ribbins. “Oh wait, you did meet her once. Natalia. You know, the nurse from that Halloween party.”

  Why did I ever think Nogales would want to be in a relationship with a stupid barely sober ex-junky waitress?

  “Right,” I said. “I remember.”

  We didn’t see each other again.

  Not so long ago, I did an online search for Manny Nogales. I found two profiles with the same name on Facebook, but they were both older guys living out in California. It wasn’t until I typed his name into Google Images that his face appeared in my phone. His wife, as I soon found out, posts a lot on social media. A rundown of her various accounts tells me he’s married with a little girl and a second baby coming. The wife isn’t Natalia, but another woman. Round face, good haircut, pretty. Belongs to a bike club and a group called Mountain Hikers. The outdoorsy type. I also learned that Nogales quit the sheriff’s department a while back and enrolled at UNC Charlotte. Got his associate’s in nursing and then his RN license, capped off with a certificate in substance abuse counseling. These days he works at an in-patient behavioral health center in Western North Carolina. I bet he’s great at it too.